When it comes to ’80s funk, Zapp are heavyweights. Coming straight out of Ohio (that great funk state) the Troutman brothers, Larry, Roger, Lester, and Terry, came to prominence with the help of musical gawds Bootsy Collins and George Clinton (king of the P-Funk), and a magical little device called a talkbox, and changed popular music forever.

I came across the music of Hannah Miller in a way many people probably did: Through Danny Cook‘s video, Postcards From Pripyat, which went viral in mid-2014 for its stark imagery of Chernobyl set to Miller’s lonesome and haunting listen, “Promise Land.” It was a shot in the arm for the indie folk singer from Nashville, who had been performing easy, coffeeshop-style listens for years before she elected to create songs with more energy, attitude, and bite.

The Menahan Street Band, named after a street in Bushwick, Brooklyn where founder Thomas Brenneck lived at the time, is a funk band composed of Brenneck and musicians from other notable funk / soul outfits like the BudosBand and Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings.

Philly songstress Res (rhymes with “peace”) definitely had a solid debut in her 2001 record How I Do, a tremendously underrated work which, to this day, still boggles my mind that it didn’t get her a bit more shine.